La troisième Blog: Thieves, Panhandlers, & Peacemakers
As far as Wednesday goes... I probably wrote the ending too quickly. There was more. It rained cats and dogs and the bicycle that I sporadically ride was stolen. I don't say MY bike was stolen, which helps take the edge off the grief. In the grand scheme of things, however, it seems better to have a bike to ride than not. Apparently, the thief followed a similar line of reasoning.
Now I'm really through with Wednesday.
Friday is a whole different story... A story involving a trip into Washington, D.C. for happy hour... A happy hour of international students from a friend's, Puzio's, class at the International Language Institute combined with sign language interpreters from Puzio's sister's corps at Gallaudet University... An animated bunch, given to trailing off verbally as they communicate, which can make participation for an outsider cumbersome. It was either fake it in ASL (american sign language -I know the sign for turtle) or struggle with foreigners who were studying English in Puzio's class. I did some of both.
Odilon is a Korean student who is going to Antigua today. I don't know whether he was given this name or chose it for himself, but he explained to me that Odilon was the 4th Abbot of the monastery at Cluny in France: The emperors and popes made some fighting. Odilon he made some peace. In about 1 year, Odilon will be ordained in the Roman Catholic church as a priest in the order SVD, which is latin for something whose Koreanized pronunciation is unintelligible. I asked him to tell me the story of how he decided upon the priesthood, which I will try to quote from memory:
When I was young, I wanted to be powerful. I did everything to become powerful. In the university, I was president (of the student body) and I did some things for festival, good things. I worked very hard to do these things for making festival, for party and after, every student thanked me. They told me it was good and they were happy, but when festival was over and I walked in empty gymnasium, I did not feel satisfied. I worked very hard and it was successful, but I did not feel satisfaction. I thought, maybe I become president of company, maybe mayor or governor, maybe even Korean president, but maybe I do not feel satisfied. So I wanted to live religious life to do some meaningful things. To do some things, to help some people. Now I feel satisfied.(smile)
That's more or less the story he told me. When I asked him about being powerful, he began to tell me the paradoxes of life, that you become poor to be rich and weak to become powerful. He told me that now he is poor, but because he is poor, he is free of money. He doesn't think about it or worry about it and when he's free from money, he's rich. He said similar things about becoming powerful and about loneliness, singleness.
From there, I wound up walking through Georgetown, going to a number of different bars with my oldest friend, Neuner, who introduced me to his friends by shouting, "I met this guy in 1989!" His friends may in fact be an indifferent lot, but really, what do you say to that? Besides, we were in these sweaty, crowded bars being jostled by groups of people dancing and photographing themselves; posing en masse for the shots, then crowding around the digital camera's display for a glimpse of the images of themselves having fun.
Georgetown on a Friday night is something to see. Weaving through the crowded sidewalks, one passes men seated on milk crates holding out cups, asking for change. As we passed one guy, I overheard him say, You don't know me. I'm in the witness protection program. I had to become black and my life is ruined! At one point, we passed two such men fighting over a milk crate. One grabbed it out of the other's hand as he started to cross the street and threatened to swing it at him. People stopped to watch. As they yelled at each other and things escalated, yuppie-looking students and young men around me began yelling things like, Are you gonna let him take your milk crate like that! or That's my milk crate, bitch! or the more straightforward, Kick his ass! One punched or shoved the other and then they squared off to fight. The spectators were giddy with delight, squealing to the latecomers, They're fighting over a fucking milk-crate! Then a police officer lazily sauntered over and the sight of him immediately cooled the panhandlers' drama. Looking at all the disappointed students and professionals, people probably running the country, I couldn't help but think of what Odilon had told me about his name's sake. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed.
As far as Wednesday goes... I probably wrote the ending too quickly. There was more. It rained cats and dogs and the bicycle that I sporadically ride was stolen. I don't say MY bike was stolen, which helps take the edge off the grief. In the grand scheme of things, however, it seems better to have a bike to ride than not. Apparently, the thief followed a similar line of reasoning.
Now I'm really through with Wednesday.
Friday is a whole different story... A story involving a trip into Washington, D.C. for happy hour... A happy hour of international students from a friend's, Puzio's, class at the International Language Institute combined with sign language interpreters from Puzio's sister's corps at Gallaudet University... An animated bunch, given to trailing off verbally as they communicate, which can make participation for an outsider cumbersome. It was either fake it in ASL (american sign language -I know the sign for turtle) or struggle with foreigners who were studying English in Puzio's class. I did some of both.
Odilon is a Korean student who is going to Antigua today. I don't know whether he was given this name or chose it for himself, but he explained to me that Odilon was the 4th Abbot of the monastery at Cluny in France: The emperors and popes made some fighting. Odilon he made some peace. In about 1 year, Odilon will be ordained in the Roman Catholic church as a priest in the order SVD, which is latin for something whose Koreanized pronunciation is unintelligible. I asked him to tell me the story of how he decided upon the priesthood, which I will try to quote from memory:
When I was young, I wanted to be powerful. I did everything to become powerful. In the university, I was president (of the student body) and I did some things for festival, good things. I worked very hard to do these things for making festival, for party and after, every student thanked me. They told me it was good and they were happy, but when festival was over and I walked in empty gymnasium, I did not feel satisfied. I worked very hard and it was successful, but I did not feel satisfaction. I thought, maybe I become president of company, maybe mayor or governor, maybe even Korean president, but maybe I do not feel satisfied. So I wanted to live religious life to do some meaningful things. To do some things, to help some people. Now I feel satisfied.(smile)
That's more or less the story he told me. When I asked him about being powerful, he began to tell me the paradoxes of life, that you become poor to be rich and weak to become powerful. He told me that now he is poor, but because he is poor, he is free of money. He doesn't think about it or worry about it and when he's free from money, he's rich. He said similar things about becoming powerful and about loneliness, singleness.
From there, I wound up walking through Georgetown, going to a number of different bars with my oldest friend, Neuner, who introduced me to his friends by shouting, "I met this guy in 1989!" His friends may in fact be an indifferent lot, but really, what do you say to that? Besides, we were in these sweaty, crowded bars being jostled by groups of people dancing and photographing themselves; posing en masse for the shots, then crowding around the digital camera's display for a glimpse of the images of themselves having fun.
Georgetown on a Friday night is something to see. Weaving through the crowded sidewalks, one passes men seated on milk crates holding out cups, asking for change. As we passed one guy, I overheard him say, You don't know me. I'm in the witness protection program. I had to become black and my life is ruined! At one point, we passed two such men fighting over a milk crate. One grabbed it out of the other's hand as he started to cross the street and threatened to swing it at him. People stopped to watch. As they yelled at each other and things escalated, yuppie-looking students and young men around me began yelling things like, Are you gonna let him take your milk crate like that! or That's my milk crate, bitch! or the more straightforward, Kick his ass! One punched or shoved the other and then they squared off to fight. The spectators were giddy with delight, squealing to the latecomers, They're fighting over a fucking milk-crate! Then a police officer lazily sauntered over and the sight of him immediately cooled the panhandlers' drama. Looking at all the disappointed students and professionals, people probably running the country, I couldn't help but think of what Odilon had told me about his name's sake. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed.
posted by DavidKraus at 10:49 AM
1 Comments:
Nice post, Kraus. Good thoughts. From a writing point of view, it wraps up nicely with the hook back to Olidon. A little more description would have made it even better. But what am I? A writing teacher? Not. Keep posting. We should talk/email sometimes about ways to get your blog more exposure and get some comments going.
Post a Comment
<< Home